


in oakland

by hupsoonheng



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Erik Killmonger Lives, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 20:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng
Summary: in the summer of 1998, the good reverend wilson is shot dead, and darlene wilson runs away from her grief all the way to oakland, california, taking her oldest with her.sam hates her, he hates oakland, and he definitely hates the pretty-eyed neighbor boy who's been volunteered to show him around. it's up to him to make the most of his new situation, but he might need someone to push him.





	in oakland

**Author's Note:**

> this is 1. inspired by the bp discord, most notably v, 2. the first thing i've written in months, but it was such a joy to write that the 11k flew by, especially on friday. i'm literally so happy to share this so i hope you like reading it as much as i liked writing it
> 
> also i aged sam down a bit to match erik's age; it's not something i normally do bc i like to acknowledge that sam is not the 20-something spring chicken some people have made him out to be, but i wanted this to work and he's not being aged down too much, since he's still over 30 by the time the mcu timeline catches up to bp.

The seatbelt feels like it's sawing at your sweaty throat. Your cousin's car was new when Jimmy Carter was still president, and it bumps along the already rough road, jostling your crossed arms out of position. It's hard to sulk when you're being thrown around like a bingo ball. 

"You know," your cousin Terrence says from the driver's seat, "it's a lot of rappers right now coming out of Oakland. You know Tupac? MC Hammer?" When his words are met with silence, he continues, "You listen to rap, li'l man?" 

"No." You put your arms back where they belong, crossed over your skinny chest. 

"What you listen to, then?" He glances back at you. "Huh?" 

You don't wanna talk to your cousin Terrence. If your mother weren't right there riding shotgun you'd tell him your aunt Cherise said he ain't shit, but your mother _is_ right there, and if you said it you'd be hearing about it all night. Maybe tomorrow, too. Your mother's never taken a hand or a belt to you, but the talkings-to are their own torment. 

"Samuel." Your mother doesn't look at you, doesn't move in her seat, but there's warning enough in her voice. 

"The Stylistics," you mutter. 

"Ha!" Terrence cackles, slapping the heel of his hand across the top of his steering wheel and its cracked leather. "The Stylistics?! What kind of sixteen year old are you, Sammy?" 

Nobody calls you Sammy. He pulled that nickname out of his ass. 

"He listened to The Stylistics with his father," your mother says, gentle but firm. 

"Oh." All the humor goes out of Terrence's voice, and he clears his throat. "I'm sorry, Darlene." 

"I'm not the one you should apologize to," she says in the same firm tone. You want to be grateful to your mother for standing up for you, and somewhere in your bones you know you are. You just can't feel it through all the anger. 

"Sorry, Sam." 

"Don't worry about it." You look out the window, taking in the neighborhood. It's something like how you conceive the suburbs to be, but dilapidated, tagged, dirty. It's the American Dream gone wrong. Maybe the graffitti should make it feel at least a little familiar, but instead you feel the distance from home all the more. 

"Almost there," Terrence says, as the landscape changes from grungy houses to grungier apartment buildings. "Here we go." 

He pulls into an empty lot out front of one of the ugliest buildings, driving slowly past kids playing basketball with a hoop made out of a milk crate. The chain link fence is broken, and you spot another kid passing through it to join the game. You can see a plaque on the building. 

"The projects? I came all the way to California to live in the peejays?" It comes out of you before you can remember to rein it in, groaning as you suck your teeth. 

"Sam!" There's no gentleness, no firmness from your mother now, and she turns just enough to glare at you. You don't say anything, no sorry, no further commentary on how you lived in a brownstone in Harlem that belongs completely to the Wilson family—ground floor, second floor, even the basement apartment that your parents rented out to Mr. Lopez the dominos champion. You just pop the seatbelt clip and shove open the door. 

"It's not glamorous, no," Terrence says as he exits the car next, "but y'all need a place to stay while your mother looks for a job and somewhere to live. Don't spit on what's free, Sam." 

"That's not a saying." You know you're riding the edge here but you wanna hurt Terrence's feelings so he'll shut up, or at least learn to leave you alone. 

"It don't have to be a saying. It's true." Terrence hurries to the passenger side to help your mother out of the car, like he just remembered how to be a gentleman, but your mother is already getting to her feet. She got dressed this morning like she was going to a spring sermon, and now she sticks out in her kerchief and modest heels. You don't know who she thought she was gonna impress. 

The elevator makes you tense, chains rattling and light flickering as it shudders its way up to the eighth floor. You know these kinds of elevators, and you know better than to let the walls touch you. 

The apartment is claustrophobic. The walls are dark, the windows are small, the kitchen corner—not even a real kitchen—is grimy, in need of a scrub that it'll never get. There's a bold-ass cockroach staring right back at you from the counter. Terrence doesn't have a spare room or nothing, you and your mother are being put up in the living room. She'll get the couch, because of her bad back, and you'll get the floor and a sleeping bag. 

For a moment, you close your eyes. You close them tight. The sounds of your mother and Terrence putting down your luggage fades away, and if you really concentrate, really erase reality, you can believe you're back in your own living room on Manhattan Avenue. You can imagine Gideon and Sarah are about to burst into the room, causing a ruckus because they're little and too full of energy to be quiet for long. You can even fool yourself into thinking your father is in the room, doing pastorly things in silence. 

"Boy, stop making your poor mother drag this shit around and go get the rest of the bags from the hallway," Terrence snaps, and just like that you're back in your cousin's shitty apartment, the fantasy of having a normal life broken. He makes a good point, if nothing else, so you go ahead and grab all the big duffle bags, all at once, and waddle back into the apartment with them. You're not gonna get robbed just because the bags are heavy. 

As your mother settles in, chatting with Terrence about her job searching plans while she adds your toiletries to the bathroom, you look out the window at the kids playing basketball. They look about your age, and you scowl, because you know your mother's gonna tell you they're all friends waiting to be made. You don't want Oakland friends. You want your friends back in Harlem. Dante, Tramelle, Xavier, Malik. Boys you've known since kindergarten. Malik you've known since before even that. 

"It's gonna be a long-ass summer," Terrence says, and you turn away from the window to look at him. "School doesn't start till mid-August so you may as well go down there and make some acquaintances." 

Well, Terrence beat your mother to the punch on that one. Arguing means continuing to speak to Terrence, though, so you shrug and leave the apartment, trusting your relatives will let you back in when you return. You try the stairwell instead of the elevator, but it's not really the better option, especially when you find someone crusty and sad sleeping on one of the landings. You're pretty sure they're sleeping, anyway. 

The game doesn't stop upon your arrival, because this isn't some dumb teen movie. Instead you sideline yourself, sitting on the little bit of cement that rises up under the chain link fence with your back against the metal and your arms draped over your knees. The milk crate hoop is understandable, but still kind of sad and pathetic. Morningside Park has a whole-ass baseball field. Watching this makes you feel rich. 

Eventually the game ends, around when the sun is setting, and if you were home, now would be the time you'd get up and say whassup, introduce yourself, make some jokes. You wouldn't even have to do all that, because you'd already know everybody, but still. Instead you stay sat down, and most of the kids glance at you once before ducking through the gap in the fence and heading inside. The rest don't even spare you a look. 

Except for one. 

"Who're you?" The kid who's asking stands just a few feet away, and he radiates hostility. His t-shirt has friction holes worn into the collar, his jeans are too short for his legs, and his sneakers are grey and cracked. It looks like he got a haircut at some point last month, but now it's growing out, hair curling out of the lines set by a barber. 

"Sam," you say. No point in lying. You grab at the fence behind you and haul yourself upright. 

"Sam who?" He points at you with his chin, defiant but you can't figure out why. 

"Just Sam." Your arms cross of their own volition, shoulders hunching in. You get it, really—this is not your turf, and by all rights you're trespassing. But you didn't come down here to be interrogated. "Who're you?" 

"Where you live?" The kid skips right over your question, fists balling. 

"Upstairs." Right now you're thinking about going there. _New York,_ you'd wanted to say. 

"I ain't seen you around." 

"Because I just got here," you say, raising a brow. "Who're you that you gotta meet everybody, the super?" 

"The super�—?" It seems to take him by surprise, and then he's laughing, a full-throated guffaw that makes you tense. "You're funny, huh?" 

That doesn't really break the tension. Your body feels like it's creating a black hole with how much you've drawn in on yourself. 

"I'm Erik." He holds out a hand expectantly, and you eye it suspiciously. Open flat palm, long relaxed fingers. There's nothing there for you to take the wrong way. You wish you could act normal, not look at another boy's hand like it's a bomb. You wish you could be as pliable as everyone wants you to be. You wish you weren't here. 

You glance up at Erik's face, and the smirk pulling at the side of his mouth is starting to droop, the tick-tock on your time to make a friend and survive here. You feel trapped behind your own crossed arms, frozen into place. 

Erik sucks his teeth. "Fine then. Be like that." He flicks his hand back, sneering at you before he walks toward the gap in the fence. "Fuckin' dumbass. Slow ass bitch." 

It's not like he's wrong. You sit back down against the fence and just let yourself be alone for a while, watching cars go by in the dark. 

"Sam." Your mother's heels click on the asphalt as she approaches the fence. "You've been out here a while." 

"Yeah." 

"You wanna come upstairs, baby?" 

"I guess." You don't make a move to stand, though. 

She sighs. "I know you don't wanna be here, Sam. Believe me, if I could choose where we went, it'd be a sight better than here. But you know we need somewhere to be while I look for that." 

Your brain is bursting with all the comebacks you have to that, all the ways you could hurt her feelings right now. But you chew your lip instead, and your silence is just as frustrating to her. 

"New York is just... It's very complicated for me, right now." 

"You left Giddy and Sarah behind." 

"They need stability, baby, and Terrence doesn't have room for them here. If we can carve out a real life for ourselves here, then your aunt Joan will send them along. Don't tell me you don't like a little peace and quiet for yourself," she adds, and you can hear the wryness in her voice, trying to break through to you with a little joke. 

"You should've left me behind, too." That's when you finally stand, abrupt and dizzying, and you sweep past her without even making eye contact. 

That night as you listen to your mother's almost imperceptible snores, laid out on the floor in your sleeping bag from the one time your mother sent you to Camp Ramapo, you spend at least an hour just feeling sorry for yourself. You spend thirty minutes after that considering and trashing a plan to hitchhike all the way back to New York, and the last thirty minutes before you fall asleep are spent thinking about Erik, and imagining what it might have been like if you'd been able to just touch his hand. 

You wake up once at four in the morning as Terrence clumps around his apartment, getting ready for work. You wake up again when he shuts the door and locks it an hour later, although somehow your mother sleeps right on through. When you wake up for a third and final time, your mother is already up, the bedclothes on the couch folded neatly and placed on the chipped coffee table. She's already dressed, judging by the pajamas folded right on top of the sheets. Plates and cups rattle nearby, and when you sit up you realize she's washing the dishes Terrence left to rot in the sink overnight. 

"Mama, don't do his dishes," you say as you rise. 

"Oh good, you're awake," she says, glancing over her shoulder. "You can do them instead so I can get ready." 

You know you walked right into that one. You take the scrub brush from her with a sigh, and she rinses her hands off briskly before heading back to the luggage. "I'm gonna go into town today and see who's hiring. Ain't that funny to say! Into town. Like when your cousins don't wanna come see us in 'the city' like Brooklyn ain't part of New York too." 

She keeps talking to fill the silence, and you filter her out, scrubbing mechanically between roach-smashings. These roaches really don't give a fuck, and clearly neither does Terrence. He should be collecting rent from these ugly little bastards. 

"Oh, and Sam," your mother says, and that's your cue to turn your ears back on. "One of the boys from downstairs is coming over in a bit to show you around the neighborhood. The lady who looks after him is a good friend of Terrence's and they both say he's a real nice boy. Minds his manners and all." She pauses, and when you look back at her she's fixing you with a sharp look over her glasses. "It'd be nice for you to make a friend." 

"I have friends," you say, turning back to the dishes. "Tramelle's birthday is in two weeks." 

Another mother might thump the back of your head, and you wouldn't really paint that as wrong on her part. But your mother, no, she skips right over the contentious part, and says, "Oh, I'll try to remember to pick out a card when I'm in town today then, and you can sign it tonight before I drop it in the mail tomorrow. Tramelle's such a lovely young man." 

You put the last plate in the drying rack. "If you're done with the dishes," your mother says as she puts in her earrings, "go freshen up and get dressed before that neighbor boy gets here." 

"Does he have a name?" you ask, even as you pick up a clean change of clothes from your suitcase and head for the bathroom. 

"Oh, she told me last night, but I'm afraid it's escaping me right now," she clucks. "Go on, get clean." 

You wonder, as you try not to touch the mildewed shower curtain or the mold climbing the tile wall, which of the kids you saw last night might be your new guide. It might not be any of them, of course, you doubt that every kid in the building plays ball and you certainly didn't expect the whole kid population to be represented to you in one night, in one empty lot. If anything, it's probably some Steve Urkel looking nerd, quiet and bookish enough to please any mother looking for a trouble-free friend for her sulking son. 

You bark a laugh to yourself as you entertain, briefly, the idea that it'd be Erik. Your mother yells through the door that you better stop daydreaming and hurry up, and that you better not be wasting the hot water. You don't know why she's so worried when she's already showered, but okay. 

You drag a soft brush over your head as you exit the bathroom, just as your mother hurries to answer the doorbell that's going. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she says, out of habit from when she'd have to rush through the house and through the narrow front hall to get to the front door. "Sam, put that away," she hisses, and you tuck the brush back into your suitcase right before you realize you don't know what to do with your hands. 

"Good to see you again, Mrs. Wilson," says an old woman's voice behind the door that your mother hasn't opened all the way yet. 

"I told you before, you can call me Darlene," your mother laughs. "Won't you come in, Mrs. Baker?" 

"Only if you'll call me Gladys," she laughs back. Your mother opens the door completely to let Mrs. Baker inside, an elderly dark skinned woman with a cane and a puff of white hair that looks like a cloud that landed on her head, ready to be whisked off with the next strong wind. "Come on, baby," Mrs. Baker says, gesturing to someone just out of sight from the angle you're at. 

Erik steps into the doorframe, and your breath catches, enough that you almost choke on your own spit. His clothes still look like he just grew out of them, but they're clean, even pressed. He's holding some kind of big tupperware container, missing the lid so it's topped with tinfoil. And god, his face is totally changed when he smiles, big and sweet just for your mother. 

"This is for you, Mrs. Wilson," Erik says. 

"I made you some macaroni and cheese to feed you and your boy," Mrs. Baker says, while your mother tells Erik quietly to go ahead and put it in the fridge. "Tell Terrence he can have _one_ serving. I've made him plenty of food in the past." She makes her way to the couch and parks herself there with a groan. "You must be Sam," she adds, looking you up and down. 

"Yes, Mrs. Baker," you say, because for all your emotional turmoil you won't forget your manners. "Nice to meet you." 

Mrs. Baker smiles, and it crinkles her whole face. She looks about a million years old. Your mother just called her "the lady who looks after" Erik, which makes it sound like she's not even his grandmother. "Erik, come over and say hello." 

Erik closes the fridge door, and strides over with his hand out. He's still smiling, a little softer now, not beaming like he was when he was succeeding at impressing your mother. The way he holds his hand is totally different from last night, waiting for a handshake rather than a dap, and you give that handshake to to him while feeling like your head is full of fog. 

"Good to meet you, Sam," he says, voice even pitched up from the way he questioned you last night. His hand is warm, with the semi-soft skin of someone who works hard and always carries lotion. You know you're holding his hand a little too long when he's the one to break away. 

"Right, you too," you say, your jaw working slower than you want it to. 

"Gramma said I should show you around today, so let's go," he says, pointing at the door with the top of his head. Maybe Mrs. Baker is his grandmother after all. 

"What, now?" You haven't even had breakfast, and man, even cold you could smell that macaroni and cheese. 

"You got something else to do?" Erik smirks, and there's a seed of the boy you met last night in it that makes you not want to leave the apartment after all. But he's got you. 

"I ain't had breakfast," you say, shuffling your feet like you mean to go to the kitchen. Kitchen area. Whatever. 

"You boys ought to get breakfast outside, make it part of the experience," your mother says, and man, you could just shake her. She digs in her purse, produces a five dollar bill that's probably more than enough. Not that you know about these California prices. Pressing the bill into your hand, she shoos you toward the door. "Go on now." 

Your heart kicks harder inside your chest the closer you get to the door, and you feel a bead of sweat run down your temple as the door closes behind you. Erik goes to the elevator, presses the button, waits with his hands clasped behind his back. You take slow steps toward him, because it's the normal thing to do to wait next to him but you don't want to. Erik looks at you, eyes bright and curious, framed by lush eyelashes, and you pause. 

"You lookin' nervous, man. You alright?" 

"I'm good," you lie, wishing you hadn't left your brush in your suitcase. It's your favorite nervous tic. 

The elevator arrives, three inches higher than the floor. Erik steps inside, hands still behind him. "Come on, Sam." 

You're being stupid. Erik's just another kid. He's not gonna do shit to you; with the way he talked to his grandmother or whoever Mrs. Baker is, he's not coming to Terrence's apartment strapped up, if nothing else. You tell yourself to stop being an asshole and join him in the stinkass elevator. 

The doors close. 

"You can relax," Erik says as the elevator begins its barely-controlled drop to the lobby. "I do what I'm told. Gramma said show you around, I'ma show you around. I'll show you just as much respect as I have to and no more." He turns his face, but not enough to actually look at you, his eyes cast to the floor. "Which is more than you showed me last night." 

"I didn't mean it like that." You tense your arms because you can feel that they wanna cross, and you don't need obvious body language like that right now. 

"Ain't about how you meant it. It's about consequences." He seems older than his sixteen years—or whatever his age is, you know it's something close to yours—in this moment, his pose military, his voice commanding. "But like I said, you got nothin' to worry about. Gramma says show you around, make you a little friend, that's what I'm gonna do." 

"I don't need a friend." There go your arms anyway. 

"Attitude like that says different. This is Oakland, little boy." 

"Oakland what? I'm from Harlem," you spit back, and it's the strongest your voice has been since getting off the plane. "I don't need _shit_ to get by." 

Erik's eyebrows go up, and his mouth goes down as he nods, as if impressed. "Alright then. See how that works out for you." 

The elevator opens, and Erik's charming charade is back in play. He strolls out onto the court like he's the lord of it, introduces you to the couple of kids actually outside at this hour. He gives you the names of kids who actually own basketballs, but they fly right out the back of your head despite only being three names, along with the names of the kids you just met. 

In California they don't have bodegas or delis. They have corner stores, and the corner stores don't have sandwich counters for a baconeggncheese on a roll. This one doesn't anyway. They have nothing that even looks like breakfast, and you pick out a soggy-looking cinnamon bun that looks like it's been sticking to its cellophane wrapper for a good year. Erik chooses something just as unappetizing, and you pay for both with the five your mother gave you. You tear the plastic open with your teeth when you get outside, and the first bite is just as disappointing as you expected. 

Erik laughs. "You don't have to look so damn sad. It's just food." 

"Food's supposed to be good, though." You sigh before taking another bite. It's unfortunate how hungry you are. "In New York you can get a fresh sandwich made at like, any bodega. You can get it hot, too. And you don't have to walk along like, a highway, basically, to get it." 

"That's not a highway. And food just makes you not hungry anymore. It's only good when it's home cooked." 

"Like Mrs. Baker's mac and cheese?" 

"Like Gramma's mac and cheese," Erik agrees, before opening up his equally disgusting pastry. 

"So that's really your grandma?" you ask as the two of you amble down the road back toward the building. 

"No." Erik snorts. "You don't have people you call your aunty or your cousin even though they got no blood relation to you?" 

He's got a point there. Your mother's childhood best friend is your aunt because your parents said so. You don't know what to say now, though, so the rest of the walk is spent in silence. Seems like Erik has fulfilled whatever amount of conversation Mrs. Baker obligated him to give you. 

"So that's it? That's all there is to see around here? A ghetto-ass basketball court and a corner store?" you ask when you make it back to said court. 

"Nah. I just got other shit to do," Erik says, and he ducks through the fence without so much as a look back. 

Your mother isn't back from job hunting yet and you don't have a key yet, so the rest of your afternoon is made up of finally asking to play ball once some other kids come outside, actually playing basketball, and being at least halfway social. You still can't remember most of these kids' names but you think maybe after tomorrow they'll stick. 

"Did you have a good time with Erik, baby?" your mother asks when she gets back. "He show you around?" 

"Yeah, a little bit, then he said he was busy," you say with a shrug. 

"That's a shame," she says, and it's so light how she says it that if she weren't your mother, you'd miss the tiredness in the words. Another day of her son being a social failure. 

"I played ball with some of the other kids after," you add, which makes her smile just enough. You don't know why you're trying to cheer her up when you're still mad at her, but you miss her smiling. You miss her smiliing for you. 

Mrs. Baker's macaroni and cheese is salty and delicious, thick with Velveeta. Terrence comes home from whatever he was doing all day (since, as your aunt Cherise said, it's certainly not just work) and helps himself to a big corner of it that works as a loophole around Mrs. Baker's one-serving-per-Terrence policy. You don't say a word for the rest of the night, and your mother is back to being tired. 

In the morning, your mother gives you a spare key Terrence got made yesterday but didn't bother to give you, so you can be a little more independent. She's going out to look for a job again today, try doctors' offices "in town." Mrs. Baker lets your mother use her car, since she doesn't go anywhere anyway. She kisses your forehead before she shrugs on her blazer and leaves. 

The biggest disappointment about Terrence's hovel isn't the roaches, although they're definitely up there. It's not even that you discover that not only are there regular roaches, there are big ass waterbugs too that skitter over the floor at night. (You learned quick to zip your sleeping bag up all the way, and fuck breathing or being too hot.) It's that he has no record player. 

It's not that you don't know that's a dumb complaint to have, and that a record player is a huge luxury you'd be stupid to expect to find in the projects. But you brought some of your favorite records with you anyway, just to have them with you. The Stylistics. The Isley Brothers. Curtis Mayfield. The Delfonics. Marvin Gaye. The shit your boys called corny right up until these records took on their new, deeper meaning. 

With your mother and Terrence gone, you pull one of the records out of their protective wrapping of 80% of your t-shirts. Black, worn at the corners despite being well-cared for, red and orange text across the top reading _This Old Heart of Mine_ and _THE ISLEY BROS._ An inoffensive picture of a white couple on a beach. You run your hands over the cardboard, gently because you were taught that your fingers were oily agents of corrosion just waiting to ruin a good record sleeve. 

Before you were ten, honestly, you didn't even know other music existed. Your father woke the whole household up every Saturday morning at seven sharp with _Stop! In the Name of Love_ playing at the highest volume the record player could dish out, and as a little kid you were more than happy to run downstairs and yell right along with him and the Isley Brothers, before being wrangled into cleaning. Saturday was a day for music, for family, for anything joyous, and it stayed that way even when Gideon and Sarah came along. 

Just thinking of the lyrics makes a knot in your throat. 

Three quick knocks announce that someone's waiting at the door. Instantly you're suspicious, and instead of answering you take the time to put the record away with its brethren in your suitcase. The knocks come again, louder. 

You know better than to just throw open the door. You lift the cover on the peephole and lean in to see just who's so pressed to see you. 

It's Erik, raising his fist for another round of knocks. You open the door in the hurry, just enough to put your head through. "I thought you had shit to do," you say. 

"That was yesterday," Erik says. "I told you I didn't show you everything." 

"Is this because your Gramma said so?" 

"Course it is. You decent?" 

"Yeah." You open the door the rest of the way, and Erik saunters in past you. He makes his way to the couch, taking in the sheer amount of luggage parked next to it as he sits down. 

"So this isn't just a social call, huh? Y'all really living with this donkey." 

Terrence is blood, so by rights you should defend him against those that would come into his home and call him a donkey, but you just don't care enough. "For now," you say, heading into the bathroom to brush your teeth. 

You spit, and when you straighten again, Erik's reflection is in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the doorjamb. Your whole spine goes tight. 

Erik chuckles, low and quiet, and that makes your gut tighten next. "What're you so tense for?" 

"I'm not tense." You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, and your toothbrush jingles against the sides of the glass you drop it in. Your whole body feels taut. "You ready to go or not?" 

"I'm always ready, baby," Erik says with another laugh, which gives your stomach an extra twist it didn't need, and that you don't understand. 

This time, Erik has a car, although he offers no explanation as to whose it is; you doubt he has any real claim to it. There's all sorts of debris inside that comes from living half your life in a car, and Erik makes no move to clear the front seat for you. You sweep the receipts, tiny candy wrappers and lint onto the floor of the car and sit down, but Erik just stares at you. 

"You missing a step," he says, tapping the seatbelt that crosses his own shoulder. 

"In New York we don't bother." 

"In New York y'all must be stupid, then. I ain't dying for convenience." Erik sits back, continues to stare at you. "I'm not moving this damn car until you buckle the fuck up." 

"I don't even know where you're taking me, first of all," you say, "and second of all you're the dumb one if you're really asking me to believe all of Oakland wears a damn seatbelt." _Especially you,_ you're glad you didn't add. 

"I'm not asking you to believe shit, I'm telling you to put that damn seatbelt on." He pokes you in the shoulder with one pointing finger. 

"I think you're just sticking on this point to fuck with me," you sneer. 

"Guess you'll never know! Because if you don't buckle that shit by the time I count to three, I'm kicking you out of this car and we fightin'." He jabs you again. 

You should get out of the car and go back to Terrence's apartment, hang out instead with your father's records that would never cause you this level of agitation. Erik doesn't even like you. You most definitely don't like him. He's only hanging out with you because he was ordered to. 

And yet you buckle your seatbelt, frowning but compliant. Erik chuckles again, and turns the ignition. 

Erik takes you to a theater. It's nothing special, just a Loews, but Mrs. Baker gave Erik movie money, apparently. He chooses a movie without consulting you, and doesn't tell you the name of the movie even when you're sitting through the previews. 

It's Mulan. It's fucking Mulan. It just came out and Sarah is obsessed with it after only seeing it once, made worse by the fact that your mother bought her the soundtrack cassette the same afternoon. _This is what you give me to work with, well honey, I've seen worse!_ you mouth along, feeling somewhat spoken to. In your peripheral vision you think you see Erik's head turn your way, but you're not going to acknowledge it. 

What else you're not going to acknowledge is that in the half-empty weekday matinee showing, Erik is sitting right next to you. His shoulders are already filled in, broad enough to touch yours in these cheap-ass narrow seats. You keep your arms tucked in, though, and that's the only thing keeping you from skin to skin contact at the elbow. 

You're overthinking things. You've known Erik for all of three days. He's being nice to you only because he's been told to by someone he respects, as evidenced by the fact that he didn't even ask what movie you wanted to see. As soon as you get back to the projects he's probably gonna ditch your ass again, go vanish to do whatever the fuck it is he does all day. 

And anyway, the way you feel about boys—you haven't even addressed it yet. Sometimes you feel it lurking, when you play rough with Malik or Dante, but the adults in your life love to mention how your "hormones are acting up" or whatever, so you chalk it up to that and move on until the next time it sneaks up on you. 

You're correct in your predictions, of course. Erik drives you back to the building in silence—again enforcing seatbelt rules, and again testing your patience—and as soon as you're out of the car, he unbuckles his seatbelt and takes off with the wheels peeling out. 

The rest of the day is a lot like yesterday. You play some ball, get to know the other kids around here a little more, tell them about how it is in New York. Some of them aren't impressed, but most of them are curious to hear you talk about someplace that isn't here. You and your boys would probably be the same if one of these Oakland kids landed on Adam Clayton Powell. You go upstairs, watch some bad TV because Terrence only has the antenna and no cable, greet your mother when she gets home, have a KFC dinner with her and Terrence a couple hours later and wash the dishes afterward. You kill five roaches in the process. 

You sleep fitfully, plagued by Harlem dreams and the fact that you can hardly breathe encased in a fleece-lined sleeping bag. 

"I'm sorry I'm gone all day, Sam," your mother says as she leaves the next day. "Things will get better soon. I promise." You want to tell her it's alright, but you'd be lying, so instead you ignore her. She sighs on her way out the door. 

The thing that surprises you is that Erik is at the door again, not a half hour later. He says he's got someplace else to take you. 

He's knocking on your cousin's door the next day, too. 

And the next day. 

And the next day. 

You wonder why, whenever he ditches you after whatever planned activity he brings you to, you keep saying yes. You could definitely say no. You could slam the door in his face, or even just say you're sick and cough on him for effect. You could stay inside, watch Jerry Springer and Maury. You could take out your record collection and stare at their covers for a while since you have no way of listening to them. 

And actually that _is_ what you do—after you spend time with Erik. 

Mrs. Baker must be a powerful force in his life to make Erik come get you every day. It's been weeks, school on the horizon. There are days where he doesn't have anything planned, exactly, he just says he's taking you "around" and you walk a lot. In the beginning it was awkward, just two boys walking at varying paces through the Bay Area, which is what you had to learn it was called. It's part of the East Bay Area, specifically, and more generally the San Francisco Bay Area, but not part of San Francisco. You think it's confusing, which makes you talk about the different boroughs of New York until Erik reminds you you're not in New York anymore, so you better figure out California life instead. It's better than what you expected, which was for Erik to tell you to shut up or that he didn't care. 

Now, you both talk freely. Erik talks about what it's like at the high school you'll be going to. He talks about shit that's happened in the neighborhood that everyone remembers. He tells you about which local spots have been where and what replaced them, which is a familiar story to you. Even the little shit comes up—what movies you both like, what video games you're into at the arcade, who you both like in music right now. 

In return, you talk about New York in a new way. You don't compare it to Oakland anymore, don't start your sentences " _Well,_ in New _York_..." anymore. Instead you tell stories of what it's like in the summer, with the fire hydrants spilling open to the sound of a Mr. Softee truck down the block, everybody lined up on the stoops or hanging halfway out the window because it's so damn hot and paying for air conditioning is a joke, especially when plugging it in turns off half your home. If you go uptown a little, everyone's speaking Spanish, and boomboxes blast fast-paced merengue instead; if you dip downtown a little bit, you find the line where white people stop or start being comfortable, one they keep pushing up every so often. 

"I wish you could come back with me and see," you say once. Erik looks stricken, and you both clear your throats. Probably neither of you really understand what just happened. 

The only thing you don't talk about is family. You never ask, and Erik never tells you why he lives with an elderly woman who isn't his blood, with no actual relatives to be found. Erik never asks, and you never tell why you came to Oakland, why you live with bum-ass Terrence. Your mother has a job now but she still has to work on saving for a deposit, and actually finding an apartment. 

"So now's the time when you don't have time for me anymore, right?" you say with a grin after one of your regular hangouts. You're so used to it it's funny. You don't have to be Erik's whole day, after all; he comes to you every single morning of his own volition. You don't feel rejected anymore. 

"Nah," Erik says, scratching the back of his neck. "I got the day free." 

"You never got the day free," you snort. "What're you gonna do with yourself?" 

Erik shrugs. "Your moms not home, right?" 

A strange chill settles over you. "Right." 

"Can... Can I come up?" 

Erik's never looked unsure in the whole month and change you've known him. He's never cast his eyes down like that, lashes so long they brush his cheeks; he's definitely never stammered like that, at least not around you. 

"Yeah, man," you say, playing it about as cool as you are not. 

Déjà vu wraps tight around you as you step into the elevator with Erik. A month ago, coming down in this elevator with Erik, your whole body was twisted up with waiting for Erik to go on the attack, waiting for that big ass shoe to drop. Coming up now you feel hot and dizzy, hyper-aware of Erik's body not as a threat but as—as what? 

Overthinking it again. Erik's just finally softening up, opening himself to you as a friend. You should be happy enough about that, not asking yourself _what if he wants more than that?_ You don't want to grow up gay, if that's the term you'd apply to those thoughts. You know what grownups think about that, what your classmates think about that. Something to laugh at, at best. At worst, something to punish. To kill, if necessary, and necessary is subjective. 

So you fumble the keys to Terrence's apartment, pick them up off the floor, get the damn door open. Erik walks in past you as you close the door and lock it, but it's not the same swagger he had that first morning he came to pick you up. He sits quietly on the couch, fiddles with the remote but doesn't press anything on it. 

"This apartment sucks," Erik says, with a little smile that means he wants to make you laugh. You do. 

"My mom's fixed it up some but she's not investing that much time in it. She's saving up for a place now." 

"Not too far from here, right?" He can't keep the hope out of his voice. 

"So you like me now, huh?" you chuckle as you sit down next to Erik, who hands you the remote. "What happened to me being disrespectful?" 

"I disrespected you right back." He pokes you in the arm, but softly. "So now we're even." 

"I didn't know you were keeping score like that." 

"Yup. Disrespect me again and we're back to how it was," he said with a nod. You want to lean into him, comfortable and affectionate. You turn on the TV just in time for Maury to announce that someone IS the father. 

"Mrs. Baker's really been on you all this time, though? To 'show me around.'" 

"Oh, she only wanted me to do that for a week," Erik says, eyes trained on the TV like he's not saying anything earth-shattering. "You're not that damn special." 

"You just—you just—what, wanted to see me?" Now it's you stammering, feeling like a fool in the corner of the couch, hiding behind your legs hiked up on the cushions. You're hunting hard for something stupid to say with that, anything to shield yourself. 

"Yeah. I like you, Sam." Erik puts his hand on your leg. Not quite as far as up as your knee, something a little more awkward like right at the top of your shin, but he holds your gaze over the fence your legs make, and you feel every part of his hand against your skin like it's burning you. 

The commercial break comes on, loud and blaring with an ad for KFC, and the Colonel yelling _Hey there_ makes you both jump away from each other. By the end of the episode you're back to laughing together, but you're still thinking about what could have happened if it weren't for Colonel fucking Sanders. 

It sets a new status quo. School is two weeks away, and now you're spending all your daylight hours with Erik. Sometimes he even stays long enough to see your mother coming in as he leaves. You don't even always go out in the morning; sometimes Erik just comes straight over with snacks and shit to say. 

With a week to go, you make a decision. Erik comes over as usual, and you take out your record collection. 

"The fuck are these?" he laughs as you splay them across the floor, careful in arranging them so that each overlaps the next without obscuring the artist or album name. 

"My collection," you say, standing on your knees with your hands on your hips. "These are my dad's records." 

The smile drops off Erik's face, but he doesn't seem angry. He slips off the couch to sit on the crappy carpeting in front of the records. "Your pops was into Motown, huh?" 

"Yeah. He got me into it, too." You fold your legs so you can sit next to Erik. You go down the line, Erik listening intently as you name each one and talk about the history of those artists, what certain songs meant; which songs your father loved to play the most. 

"You listen to these here?" he asks, and you shake your head. 

"Terrence ain't got a record player. I didn't really expect him to." 

Erik looks around like he's checking the empty room for spies, then leans in, just enough to make your heart thump. "My Gramma's got a record player." 

"O-oh yeah?" Shit, you didn't mean to stutter. 

"Yeah. You wanna pick one and we'll listen?" 

"Ain't Mrs. Baker home?" you say, already scanning the records to make a choice. 

"Gramma's out socializing with some other old biddies," Erik says, grinning. He hasn't moved back. "Eatin' tapioca and playing backgammon or something." 

"That's convenient," you snort, but you're not about to question it. You pick up a record, place it on the couch. "Alright." 

Erik waits for you to put the rest of the records away in their t-shirt bundle, and you pick up the record and your keys. You haven't been near a record player in weeks, only ever hearing music in snatches on TV or on the radio when Erik takes you out in that car that might be his. 

Mrs. Baker's apartment is laid out just like Terrence's, but the living area is shortened by a row of bookcases that block off the end of it, and everything seems homier, nicer. Doilies reign supreme on every piece of upholstery and flat surface outside of the kitchen area. There's a yellow tint to everything, and you don't know if it's the lighting or just the way the furniture is. And up against the wall, not far from the front door, is a record player sitting on an end table. 

There's a small collection of records in the space under the record player, and you look through them with a respectful touch. These are older than your father's, original pressings of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Etta James. You don't know how they've survived so long, especially in a place like this, but you appreciate their presence nonetheless. 

"Play some music," Erik says as he strides off to the fridge. He pulls down glasses from the cupboard, fills them with bright yellow lemonade from concentrate like he wasn't just having a beverage upstairs at Terrence's. 

You hold up the record, smiling warmly. It'll be good to share this with Erik. Not just a piece of yourself, but a piece of your family, bringing you closer together. Plus, the Stylistics are classic. You slide the record out of its sleeve and place it on the turntable with all the reverence it deserves, then cue up a song toward the end. This one was always your favorite. 

The record player crackles, and the room is filled with the sound of wind chimes. Then the keyboard and xylophone. The music swells. _Trash men didn't get my trash today..._

"Sam, you ain't gotta stand over there, come sit down and drink this damn lemonade my Gramma made," Erik says, calling from behind you, but you can't move. _Buses on strike, gonna raise the fare..._

"Sam?" Your face is hot and wet, and your hands are gripping the dark wood of the end table. It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were sharing something special and happy with Erik. You _are_. It's your favorite fucking song, what's the matter with you? 

_But that's what makes the world go round, the ups and downs, a carousel..._

The floor creaks with Erik's approach and he puts a hand to the back of your neck, cold from holding the glass of lemonade, or maybe just in contrast to your heated skin. You turn your head away from him, mumble that you're sorry, but Erik won't drop it, reaches with his other hand for your chin. 

"Sorry what?" he asks, forcing you to look at him. "Sorry why?" 

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," you say, trying to keep your breathing even, tearing your face away from his fingers. "I just wanted to share... I just wanted to share some damn music with you..." 

_Go underground young man, people make the world go round..._

You're holding in the sobs but it feels like the tears won't ever stop flooding your face, and every time you squeeze your eyes shut to try and stem the flow you see exactly what you're trying not to remember. 

Your father. The Good Reverend Wilson, a man of the people. Funk and soul enthusiast. A pacifist who couldn't bear to see fighting in what he considered his streets. And the one night he just couldn't help himself, _had_ to step in like some kind of Black Jesus when he heard something going on downstairs—well, you chased him down the steps, because it was doubtless your dad would need backup. 

He tried to talk to the men on the streets as if they were part of his congregation. He wanted peace. Understanding. Surely communication was the missing ingredient here, and the Reverend had God's own Ph.D in bringing people together. 

He was answered with a bullet. 

You'd just gotten to the sidewalk when it happened. Your father's blood spattered across your shoes. The men took off running in different directions, taking the murder weapon with them. Your father was the only person shot in the whole confrontation. 

"Sam." Erik's voice brings you back to the present. 

"It wasn't right," you whimper, opening your eyes at last. "They killed him just for talking." 

"Tell me." 

"He was just trying to break up a fight. He was a pastor. They shot him for that." Your breath hitches, your fingers curling painfully flat against the end table's surface. 

"You saw it?" 

You nod, swallowing around a hiccup. 

Erik is quiet. You shouldn't have laid this all out on him; he's just a kid himself, not equipped to deal with your shit. You don't even know what else he's been through himself, if he can't relate or if it's all too real to him. 

"When somebody killed my daddy," Erik says, in such a low tone you almost don't catch it, "I didn't know why. I didn't see it happen. I just came upstairs and there were holes in him." 

You look at him. His eyes are dry, but they look distant, narrowed like he _could_ cry. 

"I'm sorry, man. That's not right either." Wanting to comfort Erik helps, gets you out of your own head. 

"It was a long time ago," Erik says, shrugging as he always does. "Mrs. Baker took me in and the state was happy to let her." It's the only time you've heard him not call her Gramma. 

"Doesn't matter if it was a long time ago. That was your father." You put your hand on Erik's shoulder, and he looks at it like he doesn't understand what it is. 

"I wanted to get away from here. Away from where the authorities didn't care that my daddy died, just saw me as a resulting problem." He covers your hand with his, but he doesn't move it. "I'm glad my Gramma took me in, though. I'm glad she cared enough." He looks up. "I'm glad I met you, Sam." 

"And I'm glad I met you, Erik," you say, smiling soft and honest. 

"Anyway," Erik says, clearing his throat and stepping away far enough to make your hand fall off his shoulder, "you wanna keep listening to the album or is it gonna keep making you sad?" 

"We can keep listening." You don't want remembering your father to always hurt, as fresh as the grief still is. "Where's that lemonade?" 

So the two of you sit in Mrs. Baker's yellow apartment, drinking yellow lemonade, listening to the end of the album together. You feel loose and brave, and you lean your upper body against Eric's, body turned away from him so it doesn't seem like too much. You might just be imagining that he leans against you in kind, but you're happy to go with it. This is the happiest you've been since leaving New York. 

"School's in a few days, Mama," you remind your mother the next day. "You got me enrolled?" 

"About that," she says, pursing her lips. Uh-oh. "Baby. Sam." 

"What?" you ask, cautious. 

"Don't you miss New York?" 

"Of course I miss New York. But I'm trying to—wait, why?" You're in the middle of reorganizing your suitcase, and socks fall out of your hand when you do a double take. "Why are you asking about New York now?" 

"I may have been—hasty," she finally admits, "in dragging you all the way out to California." 

You know it'd be cruel for you to say _I told you so_. You can't help what your face does, though. 

"Don't do that, Sam, don't look at me like that." Her expression twists, angry for the first time since coming here. "We all grieve differently. I needed to be away from—" And it keeps twisting, as she takes a deep, shuddering breath to try not to cry. 

"Mama," you say, getting up to be by her side, putting one arm around her shoulders. You're taller than her now. "Please don't cry. Finish what you're trying to tell me." 

"We're going back to New York," she says, heaving another shaky breath. "It's too much out here." 

You didn't think you'd be so torn. It's what you've wanted all summer. Get the fuck out of Oakland, be back in New York in time for your junior year of high school. See Malik and everybody again. Read to Giddy and Sarah before their bedtime. Go to your father's church and feel his presence somewhere bigger than a record sleeve. 

But Erik. Erik who likes you, who understands you, who understands more specifically what it is to lose a parent so young to nonsensical violence. Erik with the plush lashes and bright eyes, Erik with the deep brown skin and broad shoulders, Erik who touches you and lets you lean on him. 

You know you're not gonna change your mother's mind, though, so you tell her that sounds good, and kiss her on the cheek for good measure. Then you leave the apartment, head down to Mrs. Baker's apartment and knock on the door a half hour before Erik usually comes for you. 

"I got it, Gramma," you hear from inside, and the sound of Erik's voice makes you smile instantly. The peephole clicks open and shut, then Erik throws open the door. "Sam?" 

"I know, I'm early," you say with a good deep Erik-style shrug. "I need to tell you something." 

"Uh." Erik's eyes dart around nervously. "Alright. Come in a minute while I put on some real clothes." 

You enter Mrs. Baker's apartment for the second time, and this time you sit with the woman herself, making polite conversation that avoids the topic of school as much as you can. Erik disappears behind that big row of bookshelves, crashing around a little as he changes clothes. Mrs. Baker offers you lemonade, and you amp up your manners to say no in your sweetest tone. 

"Alright, Sam, let's go," Erik says, still pulling his shirt down as he lunges across the apartment in half-tied shoes. 

"Bye, boys!" Mrs. Baker says, right before Erik shuts the door. 

"So you wanna _tell_ me something?" Erik's nerves are jangling so hard you can practically hear them. He keeps walking though, and ducks into the stairwell to lead you there. 

"I'm, uh, not going to school with you this fall." 

"Oh." Erik sighs. "Where they enrolled you, then?" 

"I'm not going to school here. My mom's taking me back to New York." 

For a minute he just stares at you, face twitching as he goes through some kind of internal emotional journey. "You're leaving m—you're leaving?" 

"She's done grieving here. She misses home." You grimace. "It's up to her." 

"Yeah, I bet," Erik spits. Suddenly you're confronted with the Erik from the beginning of the summer. "You must be real damn happy, huh? Leave the fuckin' peejays behind, go back to your fancy fuckin' house in Harlem, go see all your real damn friends! Leave me in the cockroach-infested dust where I guess I belong!" 

"Erik," you sigh, taking a step toward him. 

"Nah! Nah, I see it now! I was your fuckin' inbetween friend! I don't mean shit to you!" For your step forward he takes two back, flapping his arms at you to make you keep your distance. 

"Erik!" This time you bark his name, make him stop cold. "I came here to tell you my damn self because I like you! Because I'm sad to say goodbye to you, you donkey piece of shit!" 

Erik sniffs. His damn eyes are wet. "Yeah right," he mutters. 

"Why the fuck would I come to your door to tell you if that was the case? Wouldn't I just bounce?" you argue, and you keep coming at him until you've got him backed into a corner. "After the shit I told you? After what you told me? You think I'm so cold I wouldn't bond to that?" 

Erik doesn't say anything, just glares at the pipe running floor to ceiling in the corner. 

"I wish you could come with me back to New York, Erik." You're so close to him, and it's taking everything in you to not take him by the hands. "Matter of fact, you could, you know. We got a whole brownstone. You and Mrs. Baker could live with us." 

Erik shakes his head, and his eyelids flutter, a single tear sliding down his cheek. "It's a nice idea, Sam. You ain't gonna rescue me, but I appreciate that you think of me, at least." 

"Why couldn't you come with me? You don't have to live in the damn projects. You don't have to live with the roaches." You're feeling brave again, and you reach for his hands. 

"Oakland is still my damn home, Sam! I can't just—I have a life here, even if _you_ think there's no life you could make here." But he looks down at where you're slowly twining your hands around his, and he breathes in sharply before twining his right back and squeezing. 

"I could have," you say, looking at your hands together, "with you." 

"Sam. Look up." 

You obey. And Erik leans in. 

He kisses like he's had some practice, but not that much. Which is good, because that's still more than you've had, which is absolutely none. You let him lead, keeping it soft, tender, lest you fuck it up by going too deep and doing something dumb. 

"How long you been thinking about that?" you ask when he breaks away, and he smirks, striking a contrast to the tear trail still on his cheek. 

"Couple weeks now. You?" 

"Little longer than that." 

"Damn New Yorkers, always gotta brag." He kisses you again, pulling you closer this time even as you both keep half an eye on all directions intruders could come from. 

It makes you ache to think how much time you wasted being unsure, because the next three days before school starts, the same day as your flight back, are spent wrapped up in Erik. There's plenty of secret places for two boys to explore each other, and plenty of time inbetween to really, _really_ get to know each other. You're determined to know each other inside and out before you leave. 

You're pretty sure you're in love with Erik. 

So despite what Erik said, you ask your mother if Erik and Mrs. Baker couldn't come back to New York. She says something similar about it being a nice idea, but that people have lives to live. She was running away from hers to come here at all. You argue in favor of it for an hour, even admitting to your very surprised and flustered mother that you've kissed Erik and you don't want to leave him, but even knocking her off balance like that doesn't sway her. 

What she does allow, though, is for Erik to come to the airport with you. He helps load all your luggage into the trunk of Terrence's car, and sits in the backseat with you on the way to the airport. Terrence being in the car ruins it a little bit, since you can't hold Erik's hand, but it's good to have him with you anyway. He goes all the way to security with you, bids your mother a polite and heartfelt goodbye, then pulls you in for a hug so tight it's like he's trying to keep you in Oakland. When he lets you go, you press the letter you've been keeping in your back pocket—now wrinkled and warm—into his hand. "Bye, Erik," you whisper, and wish you could kiss him right here in front of God and everyone and Terrence, too. But this is 1998. You just wave, and finally leave. 

Your return to Harlem is a big event heralded by your mother throwing a party at the house, with all your friends invited. Giddy and Sarah tell her in no uncertain terms she is _never_ to leave New York ever again because they didn't like that one bit, so she invites some of their friends, too. At the party you tell your friends about this kid you met in Oakland that you wish they could meet, too, although you leave out the kissing parts. 

You get a long distance call one night. 

"Hey, Sam." You know that voice, and instantly your heart is in your throat. 

"Hey, yourself," you say, turning until the cord of the kitchen phone is wrapped around you. 

"I don't have real long to talk. But I read what you wrote. I'm never gonna forget you Sam, you don't have to worry about that." 

"You better not," you say, chuckling as you lean against the wall. "Because I don't think I _can_ forget about you. That was my first kiss." 

"So I read!" Erik's laugh is tinny over the phone, but it makes you feel warm anyway. "Lotta firsts in just a few days, huh?" 

"Stop," you chide him, sucking your teeth. "You think you can come visit me next time school goes on break?" 

"Maybe. I got a little money socked away, just gotta see if it lasts that long." 

"Don't disappoint me, Stevens." 

"Stevens? You ain't called me that ever." 

"I'm trying to be funny!" 

"Right, well, let me know when you get that down." He laughs again. "I gotta go, Sam. See you when I see you." 

"See you when I see you," you echo, as if that's a thing you've ever said to each other, but now you want it to be. 

Erik never calls you again, though. 

 

***

 

It's strange, you think, how much the years can change a person, and how they still look so much like they did when they were sixteen. The scars, the muscles, the hair, all new to you—but you'll always remember those bright eyes. 

"Funny how the universe brings people together, ain't it?" you say, standing in the far corner of the room where they keep Erik, which is the best way of putting it. It's not a cell, because for all his crimes against the throne and the state he's not under arrest. It's not Erik's room, though, because it looks sterile and depersonalized. It looks like a swank hospital room, if anything. 

"Ha ha," Erik says, absolutely deadpan from where he sits on the white bed. T'Challa's policy of _the living are not finished with you yet_ seems to have applied here, because despite Erik's reportedly best efforts to die in defeat, Wakandan medicine has physically healed him within a single day. The same can't be said for his mental health. 

"I still remember, you know. That you never called me back." 

"Shit happened." He's cold and it hurts, as much as it shouldn't from a regicidal insurgent who destroyed tradition and upended an entire country overnight. Or so you've heard, anyway. 

"I thought I was in love with you, you know." You finally move from the wall to come to him, though you don't take a seat. "I was heartbroken having to leave you." 

"You never came to Oakland, though, huh?" 

"Not when I was still a kid, no. I couldn't. But by the time I had the time and money, I did, actually. I went back to those projects." Now you sit, and Erik pointedly shifts to face away from you. "You were gone." 

"Went into the military. No reason to stay." 

"Is that why you left?" 

"You're awfully fuckin' nosy for someone who only briefly cared, you know that, Wilson?" 

"You ain't called me that ever," you say, quoting something you remember Erik saying to you once. The one time he called you. 

Erik sighs. "Gramma died. I wasn't 18 yet. They put me in the system and nobody wanted a ratchet-ass Black teenager with behavioral problems and two dead guardians in a row. You happier knowing?" he growls. 

"A little," you admit. "I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. Baker." 

"How do you remember these things?" Erik asks with a bitter little laugh. "I don't even remember your mother's name." 

"Darlene, and she remembers you," you say, nudging Erik with your shoulder. 

"What she remembers, and what you remember, is an Erik Stevens long since dead," he says, finally looking back your way. "I miss him, too, believe me. But that ain't me now. I'm..." He gestures to himself. "This." 

"I don't think he's dead," you say, reaching for Erik's hand. You expect him to flinch away from you, but his hand is slack, and when you squeeze it, he squeezes back. "I think he just needs someone to remind him he's here." 

Erik's crying. Quietly, staring out the massive window that overlooks lush greenery. It reminds you of the boy you knew, crying in a stairwell because he was too overwhelmed by feeling. He leans against your shoulder delicately, and you return the gesture until he lets his weight rest on you. 

"You ain't gonna rescue me," he whispers, another ghost of your shared past. 

"Watch me try anyway," you whisper back.

**Author's Note:**

> a big fat thanks to my beta lunaaltare, who leaves as many helpful comments as she leaves dumbass youtube links, and for that i always appreciate her. another thanks, too, to the bp discord for supporting me through getting back into writing even though i felt rusty as hell. 
> 
> find me on tunglr @softsams to like, talk to me or give me prompts or whatever. there's no guarantee i'll write anything but it does feel good to think i might lmao


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